In a landscape packed with superhero movies, Wonder Woman has captured the attention of audiences in unprecedented ways, making it a critical and financial success. Now that this movie has earned $821,749,588, it passed 2002’s Spider-Man’s $821,708,551 box office and became the highest-grossing superhero origin movie.
The figures are surprising for many reasons. One is that, despite being released 5 months ago, Wonder Woman continues to bring in a huge lot of money. Granted, it is possible due to a variety of markets in which the movie is playing, as the release of movies could be delayed by a few months in foreign countries.
Another surprising element is that Spider-Man’s record stood strong for 15 years, despite many superhero movies being released since. At the time of Spider-Man’s release, audiences were lucky to get a superhero movie featuring a character that had been in the public eye for decades.
Movies like Marvel’s The Avengers and The Dark Knight have earned over $1 billion worldwide, but as these were sequels or used characters that had been introduced, they do not count as origin stories. This year saw the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming, which had earned $879.8 million, but with the character debuting in last year’s Captain America: Civil War, the film is not an “origin story.”
This year’s Spider-Man opted to skip the origin of the Wall-Crawler, which would have marked the third time that character’s origin had been depicted on screen in 15 years.
Warner Bros. believes in Wonder Woman that in October, the studio had launched a “For Your Consideration” campaign in hopes of the movie scoring Academy Award nominations. The movie is vying for fifteen nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress. The movie is hoping to snag a few technical nominations, including Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and Best Film Editing.
Last year, Suicide Squad had won for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, with Warner Bros. hoping to be yet another contender with Wonder Woman.
You can next see Wonder Woman in Justice League, which hits theaters on November 17.
